Song of the Stars
by Child Of the Faeries
Summary: AU fic.... Yamato's always been kind of a dreamer.... but when he's forced to grow up, Takeru tries to save Yamato by trying to find Yamato's fallen star. A Tk and Matt bro fic, with some Yama/Mr. Ishida family stuff thrown in.


Song of the Stars: Prologueby Child of the Faeries  
  
Wow. I haven't posted in like FOREVER.Eek. Well.....this one is kinda weird. I will finish my other fics, I PROMISE!! (someday, that is.....)This is an AU fic that I was playing around with.... this is sorta just the teaser- to see if anyone actually wants to read a fic like this.   
  
  
  
"We're not going to make it, Master Ishida," the midwife said apologetically. "This babe is a-coming now." With maternal experience, the midwife laid the pale woman on the ground and got out her supplies. A sweat broke out on the young woman's face.  
  
The grass was cool and wet, beads of dew falling on the woman as she writhed on the ground. Her screams rose in the air, losing themselves high above in the stars, who winked and twinkled and gossiped among themselves about birth of this child. He was one the starborn- a wisher, a dreamer.  
  
The boy's first cry in this harsh world reverberated over the plain, and the stars peered down. The baby shrieked, indignant, and his mother scooped him into her arms and planted a weary kiss on his bloody cheek. "Hush, my baby," she crooned gently. "Soon everything will be okay."  
  
The father stood a few feet away, grim resolution spread across his face. "Isn't he the most beautiful baby you've ever seen?" the mother asked, her voice filled with adoration. "Look at how the stars dance in his eyes."  
  
"I've seen better," the father said brusquely. "He looks like a weakling."  
  
"But he'll grow stronger, and be just like his father," the mother promised. The baby continued to howl.  
  
"I should hope so," the father growled. He turned away, and the midwife finished attending to the mother and child.  
  
"Do you see that star up there?" the mother asked her baby, pointing to the brightest star in the sky. "That's your star, Yamato."  
  
The baby stopped wailing and made an almost contented sound, lifting his feeble hands into the air as if capture the star in his fingers. His mother laughed.  
  
"You should get her inside," the midwife said softly to the father," before she and the babe get sick." Her old faced frowned at the man. "Gently now, Master Ishida. Gently."  
  
Master Ishida took the baby from his mother's arms and placed him in the capable hands of the midwife. Then he bent over and carefully lifted his wife from the bloodstained ground.  
  
The midwife looked at the baby in her arms, not surprised to find that he was nearly asleep. Only slits of his eyes were still open, and they were twinkling brightly, mirroring the stars above him.  
  
  
  
Nearly twelve years later, our story begins....  
  
  
  
Yamato and Taichi lay in the very field where Yamato's life had begun, staring at the stars. "What do you find so fascinating about these stupid stars?" Taichi asked, rolling over. "They're just pinpricks of light."  
  
"They're more than that" Yamato assured him, his face grave. "It's like... that black night sky is our soul, and every person that had ever touched our life is a speck of light, brightening our souls, making our lives livable. Lighting the darkness inside of us all."  
  
Taichi laughed. "You're crazy. They're just stars."  
  
"I think he's right," a timid voice said from behind them, and Taichi groaned.   
  
"Can't you ever get away from your kid brother?" he said in mock frustration. Yamato merely smiled and moved over so his brother could lay with them.  
  
"There's the Wolf," Yamato said, pointing out the constellations. "And the Angle, and over there is-"  
  
"There's your star," Takeru interrupted, pointing to the brightest star in the sky. "Mum says the night you were born, the stars danced like they had never danced before."  
  
"She was kidding, kiddo," Taichi said, brushing himself off. "The stars can't dance."  
  
"They can too," Yamato protested softly. "If you close your eyes and open your ears, you can almost hear the star's song."  
  
Taichi stood very still for a moment, closing his eyes. The wind whistled past his ears, and he started to laugh. "I don't hear anything at all. I'll leave the song of the stars to you, Yamato." There was still a smile stretched across his face as he trampled away.   
  
Yamato gave his younger brother a half-hearted smile. "Can you hear it?" he asked, his tone hopeful. Takeru shook his head.  
  
"I'm sorry, Yamato," he said apologetically.  
  
Yamato tousled this brother's blond hair playfully. "Would you like to hear it?" he asked, pulling his old harmonica out of his pocket. He lifted it to his lips and started to play a slow melody, sad and hauntingly beautiful.  
  
A smile danced across Takeru's face as he watched his brother. People in their village thought Yamato was a bit....odd. That he had a few screws loose in his head. They said that he had his head in the clouds, and he wouldn't ever accomplish anything. But watching his brother here, his eyes sparkling with intent, Takeru knew differently.  
  
Behind Yamato's starward gaze was a sad, sensitive boy who tried to fit in. The other children in the village, Miyako and Sora, Jyou, Hikari- they taunted Yamato, and so he turned inward, hiding his pain. His isolation. Even Taichi, Yamato's best friend, teased Yamato about his wistful outlook on life at times.  
  
As for Takeru... Takeru adored his brother. No one could hold a candle to the pride and love that Takeru felt when he looked into his older brother's shining blue eyes.  
  
Yamato put down his harmonica and smiled. "Come on, Takeru. Mum's going to be worried sick about us if we don't hurry home." He held out his hand, and Takeru took hold of it. Together, the two brothers ran down the dirt road.  
  
Above them, the stars paused in midsong, and everyone of them turned to watched Yamato's fleeting figure. "Good-bye, our friend," each one murmured, their melancholy voices vanishing into the vastness of space. "Good-bye.....good-bye..."  
  
  
  
As soon as the two brothers entered their house, Yamato knew there was trouble. His mother's face was lined with grief, while his father's face was unreadable. "Go to bed, Takeru," their father said coldly, and Takeru looked at his brother uneasily.  
  
"It'll be okay," Yamato mouthed. "Just go." Obediently, Takeru walked into his small room, closing the door behind him.  
  
Yamato's mother took a deep breath, and swallowed a small sip of tea. Her hands shook, and finally she rose to her feet, dashing out of the room in tears. "What's wrong with Mum?" Yamato asked softly.  
  
His father ignored the question. "Where were you?" he questioned angrily.   
  
"We were out in the field....watching the stars with Taichi," Yamato replied hesitantly, his voice quavering a bit.  
  
"I told you to come straight home after school and to study. No playing- especially with Taichi. You know I disapprove of him."  
  
"But Father-- he's the only friend I have," Yamato protested, a surge of raw energy dancing in his blue eyes.  
  
"And he leads you into trouble. You were supposed to be home five hours ago, Yamato. Your mother was worried to death by your irresponsibly." His father drew nearer, putting his hands on Yamato's shoulders. Yamato flinched. "You need to grow up, Yamato. Put aside all of those childhood dreams and friends. You've lived for nearly twelve years now, almost a man." His father paused, his cold blue eyes unblinking. "It's for your own good."  
  
"What?" Yamato said, shock spelled across his face. "What do you mean, Father?"  
  
His father turned away, hiding his face in the shadows. "From now on, after school, you will come directly to my printshop and I will teach you my trade. When you are at home, you will be studying. I expect that you become even better in school that Koushiro Izumi. Make me proud of you, like all of the other boys make their fathers proud."  
  
Yamato backed away slowly. "But I'm not like the other boys," Yamato said softly. "I don't want to follow in my father's footsteps. I-" He struggled for the words. "I-- I want to be a musician."  
  
Harsh laughter, coupled with rage, rocked his father's frame. "A musician? You must be kidding." After his fit of mocking laughter had subsided, he turned to face his son once more. "Today was your last day as a child. Tomorrow, you are an adult."  
  
Yamato said nothing, wrapped in his thoughts. "Give me your harmonica," his father requested, and Yamato jumped. Slowly, he pulled in out of his pocket and handed it over.  
  
His father held it in his hands, running his fingers over the cold metallic surface. "Why couldn't you be like the other boys, Yamato?" he whispered softly, sliding into a chair. "Why must you be different?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean," Yamato said, sliding to his knees next to his father. "I try to please you-"  
  
"You don't try hard enough," his father said coldly. "Jyou Kido makes his father proud by aiding the patients before Doctor Kido can help them. Koushiro Izumi makes his father proud by getting the best grades- as his father did before him. Takeru has taken an interest in my work, even in his young age. And... as much as I despise the Yagamis.... at least Taichi is following his father's footsteps, and will surely be the leader of our village someday. You...." he trailed off, his eyes dark. "You want to be a musician."  
  
"But Father......... I love music," Yamato protested softly, his face trembling slightly.   
  
"It is not a worthy profession," Master Ishida said coldly, rising to his feet. "You are my oldest son, and you will not dishonor the Ishida name."  
  
"I don't want to dishonor you...but....." Yamato's voice trembled, and he cowered below his father's looming figure.  
  
Something ugly reared up in the back of Master Ishida's eyes- a cold, mean, spiteful serpent of hate and bitterness. "I was not given a choice of what I would be when I reached adulthood. I was expected to do exactly as my father had done before me, and you must do the same. That is the way things are."  
  
Master Ishida's hand rubbed the surface of Yamato's harmonica once more. "I will break your whimsical soul, if need be. I will not tolerate your insolence any longer."  
  
Yamato's eyes widened as his father approached the fireplace. With callused hands, Master Ishida gently set the harmonica amidst the vicious flames that laughed mockingly, teasing and taunting the young dreamer.   
  
Yamato rose to his feet, stifling his tears in a mask of cold indifference. Without a backward glance, he went into his room and drew the door shut, hiding in it's dark solitude.  
  
Master Ishida resumed his seat in his chair and watching the flames as they twisted the harmonica into a knot of fiery metal, barely recognizable. "I did what I had to," he told himself, but in his heart, he didn't believe it.  
  
  
  
From his room, Takeru looked out the open windows. He could hear Yamato's sobs, although he tried to hide them. Confusion was spelled across the young boy's face- what had Yamato done wrong?   
  
Takeru turned his eyes upward, searching the night sky for the one star that always shone the brightest- Yamato's star.   
  
The star was there, like always, but there was something different about it now. It seemed a little less bright, a little less sure of itself. It wavered, not twinkling or dancing like the other stars.   
  
Understanding flooded the young boys eyes, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from the star. "No....no......no.....no....." he chanted, trying to will the star to remain.  
  
Horror filled Takeru's eyes as he watched the star emit a burst of light before falling, falling away from the sky and crashing headlong into the earth. One second it was in the sky, it's light reflecting happiness in Yamato's eyes. The next moment, it was gone. It had disappeared. Vanished.  
  
Takeru blinked, hoping somehow that it was a mistake, that the fallen star had indeed not been Yamato's. But such hope was in vain.  
  
In the room next door, Yamato's sobs continued, and nothing could console him. His whole world was washing away.  
  
Takeru searched the night sky once more, but the star was gone.  
  
  
  
Yamato walked out of the school as if his soul was dead, and only his body remained. His eyes stared, unblinking, at the bleary village that unfolded in front on him, filled with menial people with menial jobs. It all seemed so tedious.  
  
Takeru watched his brother almost with tears in his eyes. A few days before, Yamato had been laughing and joking, his eyes sparkling. Now, that Yamato was gone.  
  
"What's wrong with him, Taichi?" young Takeru asked, pulling on the sleeve of Taichi's shirt. "Why is he acting this way?"  
  
Taichi looked down at Takeru with a sad understanding lining his face. "He had to abandoned his dreams, Takeru."  
  
"What does that mean?" Takeru said, a horrible feeling gnawing away in his stomach.  
  
Taichi searched his mind for the easiest way to explain it. "The.....the stars have died in his eyes, Takeru."  
  
Takeru nodded. "I saw his star die the other night, Taichi. It just fell from the sky. Could that be the problem?"  
  
To appease the naive little boy, Taichi nodded solemnly. "I think that's it."  
  
"But.... if I got the star... and brought it back... would that make Yamato act normal again?" Takeru asked, his voice ringing with hope.  
  
"Maybe," Taichi said noncommittally, walking away. "But I think our friend Yamato is gone. This Yamato isn't the real one. The real Yamato is dead."  
  
Dead....dead......dead. Taichi's final word rang through Takeru's head. Yamato's dead.........dead......dead........  
  
"No," he said firmly, his eyes searching the sky for a hint of the stars that the night heralded. "I will find your star, Yamato, and bring it back. I don't want you to be dead anymore."  
  
A look of grim determination crossed his face as Takeru looked in the direction he had seen the star fall. He would bring back the star to make Yamato's eyes dance like the stars again- at all costs.  
  
The young boy lowered his head and slowly started down the road that would lead him out of the village.  



End file.
